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Yes, but the inverse is a polymorphic decision loop operated by committee, which is just another way of describing a bureaucracy. And as bureaucratic complexity
by fapjacks 6y ago
Yes, but the inverse is a polymorphic decision loop operated by committee, which is just another way of describing a bureaucracy. And as bureaucratic complexity increases (via self-modifying policies and processes), the structure naturally tends toward greater inefficiency, which eventually results in stasis and decision failure, even though the engine of the bureaucracy just keeps chugging along. And of course with large bureaucracies, it's extremely difficult or impossible to gather enough insight and accountability to identify when a bureaucracy's inefficiencies have made some or all of the bureaucracy untenable, because that requires some unilateral force(s) powerful enough to pierce the many various veils of the bureaucracy's components to understand the sum total of its parts and adjudicate on a calculus of its inefficiencies... Which the bureaucracy was built to circumvent to begin with. In the end, bureaucracies can be at least as insane and deadly as any psychopath warlord kings with little fiefdoms raiding their neighbors.
Such is the nature of our existence that we will grapple with this delicate balancing act as long as there are humans, and along the way there will be tragedies that seemed avoidable in hindsight, but which were extremely difficult to stop and essentially impossible to predict. And in the aftermath of each, of course, various interested parties will spin the tragedy into attacks on political opponents and outsiders, with the victors taking home the prize of being able to choose the next form of grift to impose on the lucky survivors: "This time, it will be different..."
- pintxo 6y agoI‘d like to have an example for this: „In the end, bureaucracies can be at least as insane and deadly as any psychopath warlord kings with little fiefdoms raiding their neighbors.“ as I have a hard time to find one myself.
- fapjacks 6y agoYou could start with the bureaucracy of the Holocaust, perhaps?
- pintxo 6y agoWell no. Because this was a bureaucracy under the textbook definition of a "psychopath warlord king with little fiefdoms raiding their neighbors". So, yes a "psychopath warlord king" will need a supporting bureaucracy. But that is not bureaucracy __on its own__ as bad as the "psychopath warlord king", but rather under it. Basically my assumption is that under a "psychopath warlord king" bureaucracy will be crazy, but it won't be as bad under Democracy (which is kind of the opposite to "psychopath warlord king").
- fapjacks 6y agoOkay, it's an issue of semantics for you, then. So picture any number of bureaucratic messes which indirectly cause death and destruction, for example the giant cache of emergency food and water sitting in a hangar at the airport in Haiti while people were suffering and dying just a couple miles away. Or organizations like USAID where e.g. money meant for medical supplies or travel costs for medical personnel or similar in some poor nation that ends up mired in red tape while drought refugees die of dehydration or starvation. You know as well as I do that this kind of thing happens, but because there's no easy scapegoat, people pretend like it doesn't.